The Northvolt project, which will be built on residentially zoned land, is a tragedy that says a lot about the non-priority nature of access to home ownership for all.
Quebec, like other places in America, made the mistake of creating suburbs made up of houses that took up too much land space, largely due to the development of the road system starting in the 1960s.
In the 1990s, municipalities allowed, not without a certain mobilization of certain stakeholders, particularly academics, the construction of a few thousand affordable Grow Home-inspired houses. These were factory-built 14′ x 36′ or 16′ x 36′ houses installed in rows. Their configuration had two floors and, above all, a full bathroom on the ground floor thanks to which these houses could meet the needs of families and the elderly as well as people with disabilities. So the first floor could be converted into three and a half and the second floor and its bedrooms were perfect for families. In short, regardless of the reality of the households and their evolution over time, we found what we wanted in a house which, on small lots of around 1000 sq. ft., could ensure fair densification.
The expansionary monetary policy and low rates that continued continuously from the end of the 1990s until recently put an end to the construction of these houses and living neighborhoods, because developers could ignore this market by building ever less of houses and more condominiums and others at a big profit.
Despite all of this, we had the opportunity, on this immense residential land in Montérégie, to build a project that was overdue to be realized, namely a neighborhood of row houses. But once again, it’s transportation that has been the biggest government priority, and we’ll have batteries instead.
Batteries manufactured not without pollution given the incredible logistics of their materials, which come from far away and from hollows in the ground.
However, there are many other non-residential lands or lands to be decontaminated that Quebec could have negotiated for the Northvolt project.